A VOICE FROM AMERICA: MR. CHARLES ADAMS ON THE WAR.•
pro um Emma or rue varseraroan Sts,—In writing to as American friend at the beginning of the year. I enclosed a copy of the letter of Mr. C. F. Adams to Lord Newton that appeared in the Spectator of November 7th, and as certain remarks that he makes in his reply on the subject of the letter would., I think, be interesting to many on this side of the Atlantic, I enclose oopy herewith.—I am, "Thank you for enalming Mr. Charles Francis Adams's letter. I wish that I could say that this fully represents the state of the w e at the present time. flo far as those whom I meet most frequently here in 'New England are coneerned, the sentiment which Mr. Adams'. letter expresses is the prevalent sentiment, but the case is different outside of New England, especially in the Middle Hest. About thirty year. ago on interesting pamphlet was published under this title, Whom is the American People f The intention of-the pamphlet was to emphasise the fact that what is known as • the American people,' so far from being homogeneous, was eseentially ' composite '—and composite to a degree far beyond the general impneeiou prevailing at that time. The optimistic Mew was taken that, while this was a somewhat ditficult problem to solve, yet we should probably find this intermingling of races a benefit rather than the contrary. But if the composite character of the American people thirty years ago was considered a matter of concern, what shall be said of it today, after thirty years of unparalleled immigration f From the United Suttee Comma of 1910 (even now left five yeses behind IWO tM following statistics are obtained:—
Total population of the United States ... 91,972.266 Born in the United Staten Born elsewhere ... 32.242.382 91.972.266 Born in Germany a. 8,282,618
„ „ Austria-Hungary... ... 2,001,669
10.283,177 Others "foreign born" 91,980.905 Total " foreign born'
From these figures it appears not only that those who ass foreign horn, as distinguished from Indira born, constituted more than one-third of the total population of the United States (in 1910), but that, out of the foreign born nearly one- third were Germans and Austrians. Consider what this would mean in the present situation,- even if this Germ® element did not happen to bo aggressive and distributed over the ocrustry in a manner favonrahlo to emberted action. To give you an idea of whether this element ia aggressive or not, I am enclosing some clippings, which show the activity of she• German-Americans, both in trying to influence the notices} government (Amerika (der Alles) and is entering politica, as fa Passaic, NJ. (• Pro-Germans and Politics '). And to give you as idea of the way in which they are distributed over the emmtry,. I will say that, instead of being scattered in an ineffective way, here and there, they are usually concentrated very effectively in some of the larger cities. In such cities as Ballot*, Cineinnati, St. Lau* Chicago, and Milwaukee (and especially Milwaukee) they orate pretty near to being the overwhelmingly predominant element There are plenty of influential newspapers which are avowedly the 'organs' (or recognised representatives) of this Genoa. deems*, both in these cities and elsewhere; and the Stoats asitaag..of New York, is ono of the moat influential. But this is not ell, foe in repeated instances where some newspaper had been advocating the other side for some time it has been • bought up by the Germane, either directly, or by the equally effective method of withdrawing remunerative advertising patronage'
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